Lock's Quest Review

5th Cell delivers one of the top strategy games on DS.

Shortly after 5th Cell's first DS project Drawn to Life was finished, the promising upstart developer announced its second game with publisher THQ, yet another seemingly original, inspired DS project with Lock's Quest. Set in a different world from Drawn to Life, yet strikingly similar in style and attitude, Lock's Quest has been described as "a gamer's game" by 5th Cell, and a project that takes the innovative philosophy that the company prides itself on, and delivers a more mature experience around it. If Drawn to Life is your little sibling's game, Lock's Quest is yours.

The project has had a pretty short development cycle when compared to Drawn to Life (under a year, in fact), and the style of the game itself is still generally younger in appearance - we assume this is part of THQ's brand strategy, since DTL sold like crazy last year - but the simple fact remains that on a system filled with cut and paste strategy games, licensed products, and impressive - but still repeat design - DS remakes from some of the top players in the portable RPG world, Lock's Quest is a breath of fresh air, and a serious step in the right direction for 5th Cell.

Welcome to Antonia. Get ready to fight.

We've hit on a lot of what Lock's Quest has to offer in our previous hands-on (so read them if you want more info), but now that we've taken the game through its paces, completed the 100 day single player campaign, and played numerous rounds of one-on-one local multiplayer, we've come to grips with exactly what Lock's Quest offers, and who the title will appeal to. Lock's Quest fits between genres, but it can best be described as an action strategy game that blends a few real-time strategy elements and role-playing games together. Players follow young archineer (architect and engineer, the pride of the era's defensive force) Lock as he rises the ranks of the Kingdom Force, battles against a mysterious group of living machinery known as the Clockworks, and ultimately hopes to face off against their evil leader Lord Agony.

Of course the story can never be that simple, as you'll be treated to some rather unexpected twists and turns (and some fake-outs as well, so good luck predicting where it heads), as Lock's Quest ends up feeling like a mix between classic RTS games like Warcraft 2, blended together with as much story as you'd get in a lighter SquareEnix game or Atlus title. It's mission to mission throughout, but the story really pushes you to keep going.

The game is made up of a few distinct chunks, as Lock goes from a well-to-do kid living on the outskirts of the world, finally learning the true way of the archineer, and then eventually pushing along the front lines of Kingdom Force. Without going too in detail about the story, we'll say that in the first 30% of the game or so, the missions will have to drive players to keep going, as there really isn't much to the plot. Fortunately, the game continues (right up until day 100, actually) giving you new special skills, enemies to fight, variants on existing enemies, turret types, helper bots, traps, and allies to keep things fresh, so when the story isn't at the forefront of the game, it's still a pretty driving experience.

All in all Lock's Quest runs about 20 hours, and does a nice job mixing up the missions. The worry here - we've thought it, and we've seen people online voice their concern - was that in a game that feels like a Defend Your Castle or classic Tower Defense formula, you wonder if it can really carry its own full-fledged, quest-style experience. It does, and it does wonderfully. Within the 100 days you'll go on offense with Lock, of course lock down and fight wave after wave of enemies in classic defense missions, but also deal with multi-front battles, guarding up to three areas at once while working on an offensive mission, and protecting key players in the battle. One mission might have you defending a source well (basically the currency and "mana" of the world) until reinforcements arrive, while the next has you rushing right up the gut of enemy waves at an attempt to take out an opposing general. It gets pretty intense.